Believe
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: Mark's late for his own funeral.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them.

Rated: K+--mild cussing, blackened corpses, and grim socks.

Author's Notes: It's GullsWay Forum story starter III, again courtesy of Cheri. But this one has _so_ many godmothers, starting with Cheryl, who asked Owl for Mark's funeral. Owl, herself, who offered it up for group analysis, Karie, who wanted it not to be real, Cheri, who voted for it to be not _entirely _fake, and Susan B, who made the final, excellent suggestions (with a wink and a nod to her story, _The Door_, as well).

Thank you, Cheri and Owl. You guys can fix even stuff that is written on the fly.

And the second part's for Nanci and Carol, who wanted something more.

**Believe**

By L.M. Lewis

He tried to remember who had talked him into this, not that it mattered. He was beginning to think he'd never get a chance to tell him what a bad idea it had been.

McCormick thought he had, at most, an hour to live.

00000

_Ah, that's right, it was your idea._ How else were they going to bring down the whole shebang without a guy on the inside, with one of the department's nifty new wires, guaranteed virtually undetectable. It was lying over in the corner, where Tony Kolata had tossed it down—probably broken, definitely out of range.

Oh, Mark had known something was wrong from the moment he'd gotten in the car. He'd had a lot of experience with guys like Kolata—a thin, smooth, business-like veneer over a core of molten sociopath. He knew somebody was in trouble as soon as they pulled away. He could only hope it wasn't him.

He hated being right about these things.

He'd tried to leave some verbal clues for the guys who were listening in, as soon as it appeared that they weren't sticking to the original plan, but who knows how long they'd stayed in range? _Kolata's driver was almost as good as you. _

The only thing he could be sure of was that he wasn't in range any more, otherwise Hardcastle, and Frank, and their whole posse, would have already busted him out of this ominous, featureless room, in the basement of an out-of-the-way abandoned building.

_Instead they're gonna be at the meet. _What the hell else could they do, once they lost the car he was in? They'd drive like stink to the meeting place in the surveillance van and take up their station there.

And when they saw him get out of the car, they'd be damned relieved, no doubt. At least temporarily. At least until the guy Kolata had hired to impersonate him carried out the well-witnessed assassination of Lenny Haller, Kolata's rival drug lord.

God, the guy was good, a regular doppelganger. He even had the body language down cold. Kolata had spared no effort; after all, this would be on film. And the guy was wearing Mark's clothes, at least for now. Kolata had promised to give everything back later on. That would be right before they killed him, and left his body somewhere convenient for the judge to find.

_Would Hardcase believe what he'd seen?_

Didn't matter, not really. Everyone else would believe it. The evidence they'd leave on him would be damning. Kolata would be rid of Haller, and the blame would be shifted to a lackey of Hardcastle's. The judge's credibility would be ruined; he might even face criminal charges. At the very least, the press would have a field day with this.

_On the other hand, you'll be dead._

Mark closed his eyes for a moment, puzzling over it. When had that become a matter of less importance than what the judge might think of him afterwards?

_Well, he won't think anything good, that's for sure._

It would be all there, recorded for posterity. Kolata had even snatched off the St. Jude medal and installed it on the double, though most likely there'd only be a glimpse of chain in a couple of frames. That's when Mark had almost lost it, had started to lunge for the guy, had almost wound up dead, then and there.

But Kolata was circumspect—a quick and efficient blow to the side of the head, nothing lethal, just temporarily incapacitating. It wasn't out of kindness; he merely didn't want the coroner to find any discrepancy in the times of his death and Haller's. And Mark had lain on the floor as the three of them left, listening to the bar thrown across the outside of the door as they departed.

00000

"There," Frank said, "see? Right on time. All that sweat for nothing."

Hardcastle kept quiet. He still had a bad feeling about this. They'd managed to beat the other vehicle here by a decent margin. So where had Kolata spent the last twenty-five minutes?

"Still not picking up anything." The technician said, holding the headphone up to one ear as he tried some adjustments on the equipment in front of him. "Oughta be in range."

Frank shrugged, but looked a little puzzled. "Maybe he's just not saying anything."

Hardcastle gave him a hard look of disbelief. "Frank, when have you ever known McCormick to shut up during one of these operations?"

The technician was grinning. He cut that short when the judge's glance cut over to him. "But, no," he added quickly, "It's not that. There's no signal at all. We're not picking up the device. And they should definitely be in range now." He held the headphones out, in case anyone doubted him.

Hardcastle's face had frozen into a scowl. He hated when he was right about something being wrong, _which is way too damn often_.

"Frank, they've ditched the wire. He's not wearing it. They're onto him."

"Maybe _he_ ditched it. You know how he feels about them," Frank was putting a lot of effort into being phlegmatic, and, in Hardcastle's opinion, it wasn't working.

"Nope," the judge shook his head, "not this time. He knows this is the big meeting; he knows we need this on tape."

Kolata's vehicle was a late-model heavy sedan, still on a slow, cautious approach to the edge of the shipyard below them. From their spot on the parking structure alongside, the surveillance vehicle ought to be just another dark outline in the shadows, two stories up. The tech guys loved it for the clear sightlines. Hardcastle hated it; he felt too far away to be of any use.

00000

Mark was working on Plan B, which involved a piece of heavy-gauge wire, part of a coil from that broken-down cot in the corner. He'd worked it loose and was using the tip to scrape away at the mortar between the cinderblocks that abutted on the metal doorframe. He was fully aware that this was an act of futility, given that he had, at most, a half-hour left to live.

_But, hell, anything to pass the time._

He had half a notion that Hardcastle might eventually hunt Kolata down, might find this place, might find this room, might see that he'd at least _tried_. It would be a little something, in the face of a lifetime of failure.

_Still worried what the old donkey will think about you?_

He frowned and scraped. There were other things to worry about, too. Kolata had passed casual assurances on to the doppelganger. He said they'd have no difficulty fleeing the scene of the crime. He'd promised a diversion and smiled the smile of the seriously unhinged. Mark shook his head once and scraped. He didn't think they could pay him any amount of money sufficient to make him work for that man.

_No, you volunteered to do it for free._

He shook his head again. But what the hell kind of diversion? Undoubtedly violent, that was Kolata's stock and trade. Mark thought the man would prefer to see Hardcastle alive, to squirm in the aftermath, but the man wouldn't mind taking down a few innocent bystanders. He scraped and frowned. The indentation was perhaps an inch deep. They'd taken his watch; the one Hardcastle had given him on his last birthday. He was only guessing when he thought he had about twenty minutes left to live.

00000

The sedan pulled up alongside an older van, which had disgorged four men. The technician alongside Hardcastle was still struggling with every possible adjustment to pick up some sort of audio, but his partner already had a crisp video image. With magnification, it was clearer at this distance than the naked eye, and both Frank and Hardcastle crowded in by the screen.

The man getting out of the back seat of the van was Kolata, and behind him, in a familiar light tan jacket and jeans, was Mark. Hardcastle felt Harper exhale a breath of relief. Now that they knew McCormick was okay, they could both work up a bit of righteous annoyance over the apparently non-functioning wire.

Kolata's driver had gotten out on his side. The three men approached the other four, in what, without sound, could only be guessed at as cautious negotiation. There was no love whatsoever between the two drug runners. The only sound in the surveillance van was the steady low cussing and muttering of the audio technician, who was so far striking out.

Hardcastle's eyes were on Mark, trying to figure out what had happened, and whether or not he knew he was flying solo right now.

And then a thundering explosion lit up the shed behind the van, in a blazing backdrop that showered the gathering with a sudden rain of burning fragments.

"What the hell--?" Hardcastle couldn't hear his own words.

Frank was working the radio. Hardcastle could already hear the sirens. The men below were ducking, scattering, probably shouting, too. Kolata and his driver were moving back into the sedan. Only one held his ground, and that was Mark. Hardcastle's eyes were back on him, and he watched in horror as the younger man pulled out a handgun and leveled it at one of the crouching figures in front of the van.

"Dammit," Frank was already moving for the driver's seat of the surveillance van. "What the hell does he think he's doing?"

One shot, execution style, almost inaudible above the cacophony of the surrounding disaster. And then Mark was scrambling into the backseat of the already moving sedan, the door yanked shut behind him, as the vehicle gathered speed.

The second man beside the van was standing up, raising his own weapon. It was something more substantial than a handgun, and had apparently been stowed beneath the vehicle. It happened fast, a spray of bullets that took out the back window of the sedan. The car was careening now, apparently driverless, and then rolled sideways two full tumbles, before it collided with the only thing in the yard substantial enough to stop it.

The second explosion was even more powerful than the first, as a slowly falling piece of flaming detritus ignited the leaking fuel pump, and the sedan that had lodged against it.

00000

Well, he'd been thinking he had about ten minutes to live for at least half an hour, now. It had been long enough to develop a blister, from using the coil, on a hand that was pretty-well calloused from yard work. He supposed Kolata and Haller might have hit some snags in the negotiations, other than Haller being dead, that is.

Maybe his luck had changed. Maybe Hardcastle had twigged to the switch and shut the operation down. If that were the case, and all three of them were in custody, it was only a matter of time before they figured out where he was.

Of course, this was assuming Kolata wouldn't take his chances and clam up. Why add an unnecessary kidnapping charge to the already long list? Mark sat back, considering his predicament from that angle. The room wasn't airtight. He could last a few days. But it wouldn't be pleasant—no water.

He frowned, switched hands, and went back to scraping. No need to borrow trouble; for all he knew Kolata's driver was just finishing up changing a flat tire. He might only have forty minutes to live.

00000

The intensity of the flames had reduced the sedan to a twisted pile of rubble and yet, despite that, there were unquestionably three shapes within. They were monuments to the relative indestructibility of the human body, though no longer really recognizable as human themselves. The four other men were equally dead, though in lesser stages of incineration.

There had been no possibility of heroics in that wall of flame; even the firefighters had not been able to extinguish it at first. Harper had stood within the shadow of the foam truck, watching the grim, unchanging set of Hardcastle's features, and trying to figure out what was going on inside the man.

The all clear hadn't come for nearly an hour, and that only after the hazmat team had combed over the area, looking for more incendiaries. The only positive thing about this was that the press, too, had been held at bay, though Frank could see the TV vans now parked where their own had been only an hour earlier. Fire always made for good visuals; so did body bags.

Now the fire investigators and the police evidence technicians were moving in. Some Frank knew, some he didn't. The commissioner had already placed radio calls. Harper knew as soon as that tape was delivered to his office, they'd be asking for his badge.

_Just wish I knew what the hell went wrong._

Dusk was falling. They were bringing in the trucks with the emergency lights. The investigators had a lot of ground to cover.

00000

_Okay, maybe two flat tires. Maybe he blew the engine. _

He had blisters on both hands now, and the sense of urgency seemed to be diminishing by the minute. In its place were pangs of hunger, which he figured would pass as soon as he got thirsty enough. He studied his progress and was moderately pleased; he'd made quite an ambitious pile of powdered mortar, though the crevasse did not actually lead anywhere so far. But his coil had given up the ghost and he'd need to work loose a second one if he hoped to continue.

00000

Hardcastle had insisted, not so much in words as in body language, and Frank had walked over with him, to within eight feet of the sedan. Photographs were being taken, and the harsh strobes of the technician's flash illuminated every feature of the ghastly remains. The one in the back seat had toppled stiffly to the side. It was an object, blackened and shrunken, in those places where it was not consumed to the bone.

Frank began the necessary litany. "You saw the shots. He was in the back. He was dead before they crashed." It was a low, quiet statement of facts that would have to be repeated, maybe many times. It would fix nothing, but it would need to be said.

Hardcastle didn't even nod. He seemed to have gone down, deep inside himself, and whether that was good or bad, Frank could not yet tell. As for what they'd seen before the crash, he couldn't even _begin_ that discussion, not here while they still stood in the presence of strobe-lit death.

00000

_Transmission problems. The drive train._

He was sincerely glad they'd left him his underwear and socks. Aside from simple human dignity, he now had the socks wrapped around his hands, and wished he'd thought of that four blisters ago.

He missed the watch more than anything, but by even the most distorted perception of time, he doubted that less than three hours that had passed. He allowed himself brief, but gradually more frequent, moments of hope. Something had definitely gone wrong with Kolata's original plan. But what the hell that meant, he had no idea.

00000

It took a while for Frank to figure it out, that Hardcastle wasn't leaving until the remains were removed. He'd answered the preliminary questions when he'd been asked, speaking when spoken to, always factual and coherent. He sounded frighteningly like a cop. Frank recognized this as some sort of defense mechanism. But there was a limit to how much use the man could be; after all, everything they had seen would be on the tape.

And now it had come down to marking time, waiting for the interminable evidence-gathering process to grind to its conclusion. And when the body bags were finally produced, it was almost anticlimactic.

The vans from the medical examiner's office finally pulled away, and with them, the ramrod stiffness seemed to depart from Hardcastle's spine. Frank had him under the elbow, was guiding him back to the surveillance van, making him sit.

"I'm taking you home. You only have one choice, your place, or over with me and Claudia."

Hardcastle frowned. It was the first human expression Frank had seen him make in over two hours. "They'll want you downtown. Maybe me, too."

"Me," Frank said definitely. He wasn't surprised that Hardcastle had figured that out; he'd been around the system a long time. "I'll fall on my sword when they ask me to," he added bluntly. "The hell with it all."

"The hell you _will_," Hardcastle rasped out sharply. Frank looked at him with surprise. "I won't lose the both of you to this." It was the first spontaneous thing Frank had heard from him since the explosion. "We'll figure this out. Mark didn't do what he did for no reason. He saw something we didn't see, or he had a reason we don't know about. We'll . . ." He stopped. His face had gone blank again, perhaps with the realization that even finding out why wouldn't bring the other man back.

But he shook himself free, and pulled himself more upright. "We'll figure it out, Frank. He wouldn't shoot anyone in cold blood. Not even Lenny Haller." He gazed around him at the official response to sudden destruction and shook his head one more time. "Just try to stay in long enough to get your hands on the reports. We'll need them."

00000

He'd fallen asleep. When, and for how long, were both matters open to conjecture. It was somewhere near the end of the second coil's usefulness. He doubted that he could have slept very long, curled up on a cement floor—the cot was understandably less comfortable even than that.

The hunger pangs had come and gone a couple of times, and now, as he'd predicted, he'd become more thirsty than hungry. _Must be at least eight hours—maybe ten._

_Kolata's not coming back. _

_But where's Hardcastle?_

He worked a third coil loose and contemplated the possibilities, all the way from Kolata having made a nearly clean getaway, to Haller having beaten them to the draw. In all of these scenarios, Hardcastle would, by now, know something was very wrong. He'd be following up leads. Kolata must have some connections to this place; though, in truth, he couldn't remember coming across anything pertaining to it in the judge's file.

At the very least he'd be _looking_. Mark put down the coil and considered the little microphone and all its fragile parts, tossed casually in the corner by Kolata, _ah . . . yesterday_? Most likely. He leaned over and picked it up, shaking it gently and listening for any fatal injuries. It seemed in one piece. He looked down at it, feeling rather foolish.

_But even more of an idiot if he's somewhere nearby, looking for you and he passes this place right by._

He cleared his throat and said, very calmly, "Testing, one, two, three."

00000

Frank had finally taken Hardcastle back to the estate, and left him, not heading up to bed, but sitting, where he'd seen him sit a hundred times before, at the desk in the den.

"I'll run downtown," Frank said, "try to buy myself some time." He checked his watch quickly—nearly two a.m. "Probably won't be anybody around to suspend me at this hour, anyway." He smiled grimly. "Then I'll try to get my hands on the evidence reports." He left out any comment on the medical examiner's office. No need to bring that up right now.

Now that he was home, Milt looked more than a bit at ends. He had the Kolata file in front of him, but there couldn't be much in there with which he was not already familiar. There was a long moment of silence before he acknowledged Frank's comments, and then a moment further still before he looked up at the lieutenant, with an expression of deep-seated realization.

"My God, Frank, I'm gonna have to plan the kid's funeral."

00000

The one-two-three routine got old pretty fast. For one thing, Mark was aware that it didn't convey any useful information, and that about the only thing it might accomplish would be to make Hardcastle want to find him so that he could ring his neck out of sheer frustration.

The problem was, it was only one-way communication, and no way to know if it was even that. He might be talking to himself, for all he knew. Hardcastle would probably never hear a word he was saying.

_Well, what else is new?_

He frowned, put the small device down for a moment and felt a twinge of guilt. _No, you know that's not true. No one's ever understood you better._

He took a deep breath and started again. "Listen, Hardcase, I wish I did know where I was. We were on Costa Mesa for a while, then we got off on some side roads; a few turns, no signs. I wound up shoved down on the floorboards in the back seat, lost track of things for a while." He felt his jaw; it was still sore, almost as sore as the side of his head. He wasn't sure how long he'd been out that first time. "And then we wound up here. An old roadhouse maybe. Dark brown paint, boarded-up windows. No sign. It's got a room in the basement, kinda seriously reinforced."

He looked around him again, cinder-block walls and a metal door that had no features on the inside. He knew it opened outward, and had a heavy metal bar across it on the other side. It wasn't anything that could be finessed.

"It kinda reminds me of being in the hole up at Quentin . . . I mean 'the _adjustment_ center'," he smiled a little tightly, "only without the bologna sandwiches." He picked up the wire coil, and got on his knees again, setting the tiny microphone aside. The idea that someone was going to look for him, let alone _find_ him, was starting to seem a dim possibility. Moving mortar in the hopes of finding a way out was almost as foolish but . . . _hell, you've done lots stupider things._

00000

It had really only taken two phone calls. The first he made to Barbara Johnson, Flip's daughter and a long-time friend of Mark's. He'd told her what had happened straight up—he didn't have the time or patience for ambiguity right now—but the solemn shock and sorrow she had voiced, had taken him aback. It was more grief than he would have expected from a seldom-seen friend. It occurred to him that the loss of her father must still weigh heavily on her, and Mark had been the biggest part of what had gotten her through that.

She said she was on her way, even before he thought to ask. She said she knew the people Mark knew . . . '_had_ known,' she corrected herself quietly. She would make the necessary calls.

The second person he called, almost to his own surprise, was Teddy Hollins. This time he didn't have a chance to temper his words; Teddy seemed to know from the start that something was horribly wrong. But his nervous burst of questions settled down, once he had the facts, and, in their place, was a slow, _resigned_ grief, and one very telling remark, "He was kinda like a big brother to me."

Teddy said he'd talk to the people who needed to be talked to, that he'd explain things. He said all of this quietly, with none of his usual affable flightiness.

With those two contacts made, Hardcastle turned his attention to the more difficult one, but after two hours, and countless dead-end phone calls to Vegas, Atlantic City, and even Tahoe, he was no closer to finding Sonny Daye.

00000

He scraped and talked. What had seemed awkward at first, too much like conversing with himself, had settled into a wide-ranging meditation. "And when you _do_ catch this guy, Hardcase, he's got my medal. I want that back." He made one swift jab at a loosened section and watched it crumble away with some satisfaction. "And my watch, I want that." He frowned. "I really _like_ that watch," he added, and, after a moment, "Did I ever tell you that? I mean, I'm careful with it. I'd never lose it." He let out a slow breath and pried into the mortar one more time. "I wish I had it here now."

00000

Frank came back in the early morning. He wasn't surprised when Milt met him at the door in the same clothes he had been wearing the night before and with a wearily glowering expression. None of it was directed at Frank. For him there were only concerned inquiries. Frank lied about having gotten a little sleep, just as he expected the judge would lie right back to him.

With the social falsehoods out of the way, Milt led him into the den. The Kolata file was sorted and spread across the desk, with a full page of notes jotted onto a legal pad.

"Anything from your end?" The judge rubbed the bridge of his nose as he settled back in behind the desk.

Frank descended heavily into a chair. He had information, but none of it would be easy for Hardcastle to hear. He thought maybe it was best to get the hardest part out of the way.

"The preliminary report from the coroner's office."

The judge winced and looked away, but said, "Let's have it."

"Three gunshot wounds, two to the torso, one to the back of the head. The M.E. is calling that last one the proximate cause of death. Proximate _and_ immediate," he added.

Hardcastle said nothing.

"The driver took a shot through the neck. The front-seat passenger was the only one who might have lived long enough to burn to death."

"Kolata."

"Yeah, by age and height. None of them can be ID'd definitively yet." He shook his head. "And the evidence list, there was a religious medal—St. Jude. Chain broken. It was found next to where the sedan was originally parked. Must've come off before he climbed in. I think I can get them to release that," Frank said. "Personal effects of the deceased, not really much use as evidence." He shook his head. "But they did ask for dental records."

Hardcastle looked up at him, quizzically.

"Yeah," Frank shook his head, "I know; they ask a hundred questions and give you back one typed page, at the most."

The judge sighed. "I dunno if he's been to anybody since he's been out. You know . . . kids, they put things off."

Frank nodded. "Yeah, well, maybe San Quentin, though I'm not counting on them being too complete. If not, the M.E. will just have to close it up without all the blanks filled in. They know about the tape," he exhaled heavily. "_Everybody_ knows about the tape."

"The commissioner call you in yet?" Hardcastle looked at him with worried sympathy.

"I've been on the road," Frank replied wryly. "But he's left messages for me damn near everywhere . . . don't know how much longer I can be too busy to have heard." Frank's gaze drifted off, a little to the side.

"I'm tired, Milt," he added, and it was clear from the tone that he wasn't referring to the past night's lack of sleep. "I don't know what the hell I'm going to say to him. _I _don't believe Mark gunned Haller down in cold blood any more than you do, but I don't need proof. Anyway, does it really matter? Either way, even if we _do_ clear him, Mark's still gone."

"It matters," Hardcastle spoke in a low voice through almost clenched teeth. "We put him there, and he's dead, and now there's no one left to speak for him but us."

00000

He'd slept again, though he didn't remember how it happened and he had no idea how long he'd been out. Thirst woke him up, and it took him a while to get his fingers working again. His voice, too, had a decidedly rusty edge to it.

"Dammit," he muttered, "I hope I didn't miss you." He looked up at the ever-present glare of the overhead bulb and shook his head. "That would be just my luck. You drive by and I'm taking a nap. Brown, Hardcase, a roadhouse, boarded-up windows, just keep looking; you'll find it."

He tried to get his fingers to wrap around the coil. It was number seven. "And bring a couple bottles of water with you, that'd be nice." He scraped desultorily. The mortar dust was getting everywhere; it tasted acridly bitter. He swiped at his eyes with the back of his other hand and was rewarded with a stinging, gritty pain, and no tears to wash it out with. He squeezed them shut until it subsided a little. _That's all right. It'll keep you awake._

"Okay, Hardcase," he started up again, raspily, "I think this was my idea, but if it was yours, I want you to know I am really pissed."

00000

Barbara arrived a little after noon. She was calm but looked like she had had a good cry. She made Hardcastle tell her the whole story, in as much detail as he could summon up, and he stumbled through it, knowing it was part of the process and he'd damn well better get a handle on it.

After that they just sat for a while, with Barbara not even trying to offer words that would not comfort. She finally looked up at him and said, quite simply, "What do you want me to do?"

He'd already made a call to Father Atia. The rest he willingly handed over to Flip's daughter, along with the desk and telephone, and as many blank checks as she felt would be needed to get it done.

00000

He really hadn't thought he'd be able to fall asleep again; the thirst was just part of the misery. But if he hadn't been asleep, then what the hell had it been? _You passed out. _

_Dammit, get a grip._ He picked up the microphone again, then put it down. He really couldn't think of anything else to say, except maybe 'goodbye', and he wasn't quite ready to do that yet.

He scraped for a few more moments. Then he let his hand, and the coil, drop down at his side. He rested his forehead against the wall, and just sat.

00000

Frank returned. He conferred with Barbara. The M.E. had said the body would be released the next day.

She nodded. "I need to go over to the funeral home, make some final arrangements." She bit her lip. "I asked him if he wanted to go along . . . He said no." She looked over her shoulder, then back at Frank with misgivings that overshadowed her own sorrow.

"He's not doing too well."

Frank said nothing for a moment. Then he sighed, and asked, "The gatehouse?"

She nodded again. "About an hour ago."

"Okay," he got up slowly, "lemme go try and talk to him."

He left her sitting with her telephone numbers and jotted notes, grateful that she was there to attend to the practical duties of the survivors. He stepped outside and stood for a moment in the freshening breeze, up from the west and smelling of the ocean. The sun was setting early in an ominous bank of clouds. He straightened his shoulders and strode down the drive.

Two quick taps, no immediate answer, but the door was slightly ajar and he took that for an unstated invitation. He entered warily though. God forbid he should interrupt the man uncomposed; that would be the final indignity. To his relief, the judge was only sitting on the sofa, in apparent deep thought. The Kolata file was lying before him, on the coffee table, but he wasn't even making the effort to pretend to be looking through it.

"Milt?"

He looked up suddenly as soon as Frank spoke. Wherever he'd been, it hadn't been all that far a remove from the here and now. There really wasn't any way to escape it.

"Anything new?"

Frank shook his head briefly. "No, won't be from me, anyway. I'm on official suspension, as of three-thirty this afternoon . . . pending the investigation, of course." Frank said it very blandly, keeping the fire out of his eyes and the grimace off his face.

"Dammit, Frank." It might have been the only think that could have flamed the last spark of Hardcastle's soul. "The commissioner's a fool."

"No, he's not. He's seen the tapes—ours _and_ what they showed on TV. This won't be just a suspension." Frank pulled up a chair and sat down.

"How's Claudia?" Hardcastle asked.

Frank smiled ruefully. "She's been telling me to get out of it for years. Her sister's husband is in real estate. He never has to work nights and holidays." He leaned forward, hands on his knees. "How are you?"

"Real estate, huh?" he ignored the other question. "Well, get your license and you can sell this place for me." He looked around him with a slow considering gaze. "It's stupid to have a big, rambling estate like this for one person. I only kept it because it was Nancy's. Should have known better. Can't hold onto things like that." He seemed to be avoiding Frank's eyes.

Harper frowned, and bent the conversation back again. "The tape . . ."

"What about it?" Hardcastle grumbled, reaching down and straightening a few pages that were threatening to spill from the file on the table.

"I watched it, a couple of times, in the lab."

Hardcastle grunted.

"It happened, Milt. Like we saw the first time, I mean. It wasn't an angle or something. And the M.E. says Haller's cause-of-death was a close-range headshot from a .45. They found one of those in the back seat of the sedan."

"A match?" Hardcastle said testily.

"Come on, Milt. It's not fireable. But you saw the tape."

He got a reluctant nod.

"Coercion," the judge finally muttered, after a long pause.

"Yeah," Frank sighed. "Maybe. But the other two guys were already back in the car. And we'll never prove it if they had some other lever they were using on him."

Frank went silent. Another moment passed before Hardcastle looked up at him sharply. "You don't believe it, huh? That he was coerced?"

Frank fixed him with a very steady gaze. "Milt, I liked the kid. I never saw anybody try as hard as he did. He really _wanted_ to be what you wanted him to be." He looked down, pinched the bridge of his nose, and then looked up again, shaking his head. "But 'trying' and 'being' aren't always the same thing."

Hardcastle's face was set.

"Okay," Frank backed down, "it was some sort of coercion. Dammed if I know how we'll ever prove it." He let it lie there. _Every man ought to have one person who believes in them._

A sudden darkening and a gust of wind against the upstairs windowpanes, and Frank heard the first spattering of raindrops on the glass. He listened as it became a drumming torrent. He reached into his pocket for what he'd used his last bit of official authority to acquire. Something Mark had said in the past had made him think it was important.

"Here," he held out the small zip-lock bag, still labeled with the case number and its own identifiers. "They wanted me to have you sign a receipt for it." Frank's smile was thin.

The judge took it in on an outstretched hand, opened it, and spilled the medal and the broken chain into his other hand. He closed his fingers around them, and shook his head slowly.

"He wasn't a lost cause, Frank."

00000

It was a feeling of coming back from a very long way off, this time, and for very little purpose. He looked down at the microphone, a dead thing, most likely right from the moment Kolata had dropped it. Either that, or there was no one listening on the other end; that seemed just as depressingly likely.

He rolled over, his back against the wall now, wondering what had woken him up, and wishing to hell he could just sleep straight through to the end the next time he drifted off. His eyes focused, with difficulty, on a slight difference of coloring on the opposite wall. He squinted. He swallowed once. He watched it a little while longer.

It took him a few moments more to make up his mind that it wasn't some sort of illusion. Then he got to his knees, and from there managed the short distance across the room. He touched the spot. Merely damp. He grimaced. He was past being patient. As miracles went, this one was a little thin.

00000

Frank had departed, running through the downpour to his car. Barbara had gone and come back from the funeral director's. She took up the task of answering the phone, which, up till now, Hardcastle had ignored. The calls were coming at increasingly shorter intervals. The ones from the press she answered with the briefest of 'no comments', the rest she handled with quiet assurance, and Hardcastle left her to it.

He'd taken a seat in the kitchen, watching the outlines of the trees lit up by sharp bites of lightning, and dwelling morbidly on the flash photos of the evening before.

The calls slowed. He showed Barbara up to the guest room. He eventually lay down in his own bed, but sleep eluded him.

00000

It never actually qualified as a trickle, but it was definitely water. In a moment of dubious inspiration, he'd taken the less dusty of the two socks and put it down below the spot, watching as it gradually absorbed the moisture. The first time he'd been in too much of a hurry, and the result had a pretty high fuzz content, not to mention more minerals than a bottle of Perrier. But it was enough, at least, to show him that the theory was a good one, and he settled back to wait.

00000

Barbara seemed to be taking some comfort in busyness. She made breakfast and sat there with him, as they both mostly prodded at it. She told him what was left to be done. He took his list of chores. She'd mostly spared him phone calls.

"The funeral director asked me to bring over a set of clothes," she said quietly. "Maybe you—"

He tried to swallow the small bite of food he'd taken. It wasn't easy. He finally got it down and then shook his head in disbelief. "Clothes?" He fought back the unexpected wave of nausea again.

"I know; I tried to explain it to him—"

"You didn't see him; he was . . ." His eyes had gone a little unfocused, but his memory was all too sharply fixed on the last image he'd had of the body. He was distantly aware that he was shaking, that Barbara had gotten up, had gotten a glass of water and put it down before him where it sat untouched, that he was losing it. He pulled himself up stiffly. "I'm okay," he assured her; he assured himself. "I'll be all right." Then he paused and shuddered again. "_Clothes_?"

"I'll talk to the director again."

"No," Hardcastle growled. "I'll pick out the damn clothes. Maybe the goddamn asbestos underwear he wore on the track. You think that'd be about right?"

"_Judge_," she put a quiet plea into that one word.

Hardcastle subsided suddenly. He reached up to rub his temple with his fingers. He looked at her abashedly and muttered, "Sorry," then dropped his gaze. "Really. You've been a big help. I don't know what I would have done."

"You would have gotten on with it," she said, with quiet assurance. "Mark said that once. He said you were like a rock."

"He said I was a stubborn old donkey," Hardcastle managed a grim smile.

"Well," Barbara admitted, "that, too."

Hardcastle's expression had turned pensive. "There's one thing. It was important to him." He fished in his pocket and pulled it out.

Barbara smiled in sad recognition. "The medal. Yeah, he was a little crazy about that."

"Chain needs to be replaced, though. I might have one upstairs." He let himself get caught up in this one doable thing. It seemed to help a little. He even sort of understood about the clothes. "I'll go look."

00000

He thought it was quite possibly the most disgusting and inefficient form of water storage ever invented, but after the fourth or fifth sockful, he could actually stand waiting long enough for the thing to be saturated. It also, curiously enough, gave him some sort of unit of time. Five hundred scrapes of the coil equaled one sodden sock. Four socks could be—what was he going to call that? _A gob. Four socks to the gob of time. And you've now been back at it for seven gobs. _

There was a certain sense of accomplishment to this, because seven gobs equaled a wobbly cinderblock.

00000

They went to the M.E.'s, Milt carrying Mark's file and enough paperwork from the parole office to give him authority to sign for the disposition of the body. It was evident that McCormick had no next-of-kin, no one with any claims whatsoever. Hardcastle kept his mouth shut on the subject of Sonny Daye. Apparently even Barbara didn't know about him, or maybe she was keeping her mouth shut, too.

The on-duty pathologist was a nodding acquaintance of the judge's and allowed him to see the preliminary report as well. It was much as Frank had described it—and much as he had seen with his own eyes. But there, in black ink on an official form, words like 'extensive carbonization,' and 'distorted trajectory due to post-mortem effects of extreme heat,' had a horrible finality to them. _Get used to it,_ he told himself bitterly. _It's your doing._

He handed the papers back with a solemn nod and Barbara took his arm. He felt a twinge of guilt for letting her read over his shoulder.

From there they went to the funeral home. He managed to hand over the clothing without a single pointed remark, but when it came time to part with the medal he had to gather himself again.

They went over the details of the obituary, which was desperately sparse in the usual forms of relationship. 'Preceded in death by his dear mother, Donna.' That was it. Mark had not seen fit to mention any of the others by name. Again, Hardcastle didn't bring up the issue of Sonny Daye, and there was no protocol for listing the deceased's _de facto_ parole officer.

They decided against a visitation, or the judge did. The funeral director was tougher to convince.

"He's got no family," Hardcastle said, with unusually quiet self-control. "And it sure as hell can't be an open casket." He said nothing to indicate how much he himself wanted to avoid being in the same room with it, even closed, knowing what lay within.

These details, and dozens more, decided, the two of them departed for home.

00000

It occurred to him that his socks were slowing down, assuming his scrapes were relatively consistent, though they might be slowing as well. And, perforce, this would mean there weren't as many gobs in a day, however many there had been before.

He thought he'd gotten enough water to hang on for a while longer, though he still didn't have enough to make spit, but now he was back to being hungry. And he'd begun to hate cinder-block with every fiber of his being. It seemed pretty unreasonable that a person could get one to wobble, but still not be able to work it free, in again as much time. "I think there's a damn piece of rebar in here," he said, to no one in particular.

"It's a brown building with boarded-up windows in the godforsaken middle of nowhere," he said, one more time in the general direction of the microphone, which he'd also begun to loathe, "and I'm gonna take a nap."

00000

Barbara had sat the judge down in the den, and made sandwiches and coffee, before the first visitor had arrived. It was Mattie Groves, a dear friend as well as a colleague. From then on it was a steady trickle of people, coming and going with condolences and kind words.

Only a few of them hadn't known Mark; the others all had anecdotes. He listened, gravely at first, but some of them were damn funny stories. He knew; he'd been there for most of them. He felt himself smile a few times, fragile approximations of normality.

Frank showed up with Claudia. She gave the judge a hug that harbored no resentment, and then wandered off to the kitchen, to lend Barbara a hand with more coffee. Harper studied him closely for a moment, before handing him back to the others.

It was a visitation of sorts. Sometime during the evening, Barbara had slipped over to the gatehouse and retrieved a photo. It was the one of Mark, standing in front of one of his racecars. She set it on the mantle in the den, and his eyes were drawn back to it, again and again.

It was rarely more than a half dozen people at a time, but over the course of the evening, he felt he'd seen damn near everybody he knew, and it touched him deeply to have their support.

Even this wound down, though, and by ten o'clock the last had departed. Only Frank and Claudia remained, and Hardcastle was standing in the hallway, bidding them good-bye. The knock on the door was almost hesitant. Barbara turned to answer it, and looked back over her shoulder at the judge after greeting the elderly visitor.

He might have been another jurist; he had a self-contained dignity that suggested his judgments had once carried weight. "Joe," the man said quietly to Barbara. "Joe Cadillac. I'm a friend of the judge's." He'd said that last part without a hint of irony.

Harper looked up with some surprise, but Hardcastle merely nodded as Cadillac stepped into the hallway.

"I'm out on bail," he shrugged. "If my lawyer's as good as he says he is, I'll die of old age before they can convict me." His rueful smile flashed and faded. "I was sorry to hear what happened to your boy." If he noticed Hardcastle's wince, he ignored it. "Haller and Kolata, they're scum, guys like those. They got what they deserved."

Cadillac frowned, then he stepped in, a little closer. "Listen, if there's anybody else you figure is responsible, I still know people." He shook his head a little. "That boy of yours, he was good."

Hardcastle looked at him for a moment silently, consideringly. "Joe, you know I don't do things that way," he finally replied, in a tone that left Harper standing in apparent slack-jawed surprise. And then there was another half-moment's delay before he added, "But thank you for the offer."

Cadillac nodded to himself. "Yeah, that's what I figured you'd say. But if I hear anything . . . _pertinent_, I'll let you know." He turned back toward the doorway, but then halted a second, looking back over his shoulder. "And thank you for asking my son to do the rites; he told me he felt honored." He nodded once again and slipped out through the door.

Barbara shut the door quietly. Harper blinked once and then turned back to Hardcastle. "Milt, an ex-mobster just offered to have a hit done for you."

"I know," the judge said thoughtfully. "It's kinda like bringing a casserole for them."

Harper let out a long slow breath. Then he and Claudia departed as well, leaving the house as silent as Hardcastle had ever remembered it. He looked out the window at the car pulling away. The rain had stopped. They'd have nice weather for the funeral tomorrow.

00000

He woke up with a cold chill. _Like somebody is walking on your grave. _Where had that come from? Something they used to say when he was a kid. He reached over and touched the wadded-up sock lying bunched below the fading spot. Barely damp. He thought about miracles, their relative infrequency. It must've rained buckets, and this was not a common occurrence in L.A.

He thought about bologna sandwiches, how much he hated them but how much he'd give for one right now. Heck, Brussels sprouts even sounded good. He rolled over, and then sat up, creaky and stiff, and looked down at his hands, which were a mess, and then down at the microphone, which he had decided was God's idea of a cruel joke.

But somehow, from all of this, he concluded that he'd better get back to scraping, and he pulled the last coil loose from the cot.

00000

It was, as he'd predicted, a beautiful day. He'd gotten up around dawn; he hadn't been asleep anyway. He pulled on a pair of sweats and let himself out quietly, so as not to wake Barbara. What had started out as a need to escape from the house, from his own thoughts, became a familiar walk to the basketball hoop, but now he stood there, gazing up at the window behind it.

So, that's what it would be like, ghosts and familiar figures half-seen from the corner of the eye. Lord knew, the place already had those. He thought he was mostly over that, but now he realized it had only been a temporary reprieve. He thumped the ball on the blacktop a couple of times, almost viciously. _A hundred free throws, a hundred lay-ups, and a hundred jump shots. Habits. But then you got used to playing one-on-one again. _

_Well, get un-used to it._

He stood there, still staring up. Then he put the ball down and slowly walked back to the main house.

00000

He'd transferred his attention to the block next out from the door and he'd worked with feverish diligence for what might have been another eight gobs, if he'd had any socks to measure them by. The last coil was no longer in any better shape than the others, and his progress was slowing, but overall, he though the mortar here was a tad less intractable than the stuff closer to the doorjamb.

When he first felt this block move, he'd corralled his excitement. He thought another disappointment right about now would do him in. He would have eaten the Brussels sprouts raw, right out of the bag, if someone had offered them to him right now.

But the block was more than wobbly, he was able to creep it out, one inch, and finally a couple more, until he had enough purchase to get his fingers into the hollow space that ran through it and raspily ease it out the rest of the way. There was no light from beyond. He stuck his hand through gingerly and encountered another barrier.

He felt his heart sink for a moment until he tapped on it—drywall, at most. _What the hell, they're hamburger anyway._ He made a fist and punched through. Though the pain was not inconsiderable, the results were satisfying. Now he could tear away at the edges of the hole, and he quickly enlarged it.

There was dim light from the other side, daylight, though he thought it was probably indirect—maybe just a slit from under another doorway. He had a space large enough to permit the passage of his arm all the way to his shoulder, and now he was feeling in the direction of the door itself. He encountered the obstructing bar almost immediately, and just a little further over, the staple through which it passed. He tried lifting. It started to rise, then fell back.

He took a deep breath, wedged himself in a little further, and lifted again. This time it fell clear, and he heard the end clatter as it hit the ground. He pulled his arm back in through the hole and listened carefully. No other sound followed it. His last worst fear, that Kolata was simply sitting upstairs, waiting for him to die of natural causes, dissipated like so much mist.

He took one last quick look around the room, reached over and picked up his socks, and then pushed the door open.

00000

Barbara was ready. She stood by the front door and waited patiently while he stood there in the den, taking one last look at the picture on the mantle. He wanted to hold that image in his head, not the one from three nights before. He finally reached up and touched it lightly, then turned to join her. Father Atia was expecting them a little before ten-thirty.

00000

The other guy had left his clothes, piled carelessly on a dusty chair in the room next to his. Mark was more than pleased. He hadn't been relishing the idea of flagging down a cop in his skivvies. And at least he knew everything would fit.

He pulled the stuff on, feeling a little shaky, which he figured was at least partly relief. He tiptoed up the stairs, despite his almost dead certainty that there was no one else around. The rest of the place looked deserted, dusty, abandoned. He found the door, opened it, and shielded his eyes against the daylight.

And there, a vision of almost mystical loveliness, was a carefully cared for Ford Mustang convertible, white—a '67, if he was not mistaken. The other guy's car. Mark frowned in puzzlement. Clearly the guy had intended to come back. Anything else would have constituted abandonment.

He looked around a little dizzily. This much good karma was almost worrisome. He strolled over to it, half expecting it to disappear on his approach, like a heat mirage, but it was undeniably solid to the touch—though not, he smiled, solid enough to keep him out for very long.

The hotwiring took only a few seconds. And the engine started up with a satisfying roar, a V-8. He flipped on the radio and twirled the dial until he found a familiar news station. He listened, annoyed. He supposed very few people turned the radio on to find out what day it was.

He turned the dial one more time and caught the end of a local news recap '—no further leads in the continued investigation into the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Lenny Haller." The announcer segued into sports. Mark wanted to reach out and pound the radio, to make them go back and repeat the rest of it. _Haller's dead. _It had the sound of old news, a still unsolved crime. _That's because they haven't found you yet._

_But you were here for the last . . . who the hell knew how long? _He gripped the wheel in utter frustration. _How you going to prove where you were when he was killed?_

He shook his head. He had no idea. He was tired, and hungry, and wanted to go home. And if the judge put the cuffs on him as soon as he walked in the door, well, at least he might get a bologna sandwich out of it at some point.

00000

Father Atia greeted them in the vestibule of St. Medard's and Hardcastle wondered, for the umpteenth time, how this kind and selfless man could be the offspring of a mobster like Cadillac. _But, then, no stranger than Mark and Sonny, really._

He was reaching out to take the priest's hand, when he looked past him and stopped, frozen for a moment. Medard's was not one of those cavernous old churches, but it was nearly full. Some of the faces he recognized, but many, many more he'd never seen before. He looked aside at Barbara.

She smiled. "He knew a lot of people," she said quietly. "Racing and . . ."

The judge saw a couple of guys who constituted a parole violation just by sitting in the same row, and a few more behind them that he was pretty sure he'd seen in a mug book somewhere. They were all looking grim, but hardly dangerous. He shook his head. He clasped Atia's hand and thanked him again.

The hearse was pulling up to the curb behind him. He saw the pallbearers standing nearby at the ready. He had a sudden flash of memory—Tom's perfectly matched set of Marines, bearing a flag-draped coffin. Mark had a more motley crew. There was Frank, of course, and Teddy Hollins, two dirt-track drivers that still called Mark 'Skid', another guy whose name was Tellicini, Hardcastle knew he'd done time for safecracking, and Sid, the judge's old bailiff.

They moved into position, lifting the casket out with more kindness than precision, and carrying it up the stairs to the vestibule. He knew there was hardly more than the weight of the casket itself. Hardcastle pushed that thought to the back and concentrated on Atia, sprinkling the Holy Water and intoning the blessings.

Then he and Barbara were following the casket into the church.

00000

He'd driven in the direction he thought was west until he'd run out of land. Right before that was the Pacific Coast Highway, which he'd begun to think of as something of a lifeline. There'd been a momentary jog in his moral fortitude at that moment, an inkling of a thought that turning south might make more sense than turning north, but he'd pushed that down and headed for home anyway.

There hadn't been any further stories about Haller on the radio; murder had a short shelf life in L.A., but he'd felt himself sink a little lower in his seat when he'd passed a squad car parked on the shoulder.

He half-expected to be greeted by another one when he pulled up the drive, or at least Frank's unmarked sedan. The dead, deserted silence of the place was almost as disturbing. He pulled up, climbed out and stood, a little wobbly for a moment, wondering what it all meant. Then he trudged up to the front door and gave it a good pound. No answer.

He trudged over to the gatehouse, then around to the right of it, to a concrete tile that sat beneath a downspout. He edged it to the side and picked up the spare set of house keys he'd deposited there, unbeknownst to the judge. The last time he'd locked his keys in the gatehouse, he'd had to pick the lock. He figured this hidden set was the lesser of two evils.

Back to the main house again, he let himself in. It was just as quiet and deserted on the inside. He didn't even bother to holler; quite clearly no one was home. He headed directly for the kitchen, and in there to the sink. It had not quite the character of eau de sock, but it was a lot faster. He knocked back two glasses and poured himself a third.

He rummaged on the shelf, found a box of Pop Tarts, and ate two of them without much thought to either chewing or taste. The third he actually considered toasting, but that seemed like a pointless exercise in haute cuisine. He ate it cold, too. He took the fourth, and the glass of water, with him into the den, hoping to find something on the answering machine that would let him know just how much trouble he was in.

Kolata's file was there on the desk. Mark made a face and slid in behind the desk to get at the phone. No blinking lights. He pushed the file aside, and saw a copy of the Times underneath. _Saturday. No way. It had to be more than twelve hours. _

Then he looked down at the headline. "Gangland Shooting, Explosion Rock Long Beach—7 Dead." He froze again, then tried to track on the words. It took a couple of starts. His name was in paragraph two.

He picked the thing up but had to put it down again; his hands were shaking too hard for him to be able to read it. He scrabbled through the rest of the papers on the desk, found part of Monday's, open to an inside page—the obituaries.

_Of course he wasn't looking for you. He thought you'd already been found._

He ran his fingers through his matted hair, and looked at his death notice again— St. Medard's. Father Atia, of course. Made sense; if Hardcase was going to swing him a funeral Mass, he'd have to find a priest who owed him big time. He checked the clock on the shelf beside him and grimaced. _Too late to call it off_.

He pulled the white pages out of the drawer and thumbed quickly for a moment. Then he slowed, and stopped. He closed his eyes for a moment and pictured the effect of a phone call made to a church office during a funeral by someone claiming to be the deceased. He supposed it even happened once in a while. Lots of crazies out there.

He got up and scrambled for the door, then back just as suddenly to the desk to paw through the upper right drawer—spare set of keys for the Coyote. Something caught his eye as he turned again to he door—a picture on the mantle. He blinked once and stared at it for a moment.

_It's been three days._

00000

Father Atia preached from John 15:13, and Hardcastle heard the ring of personal experience in his homiletics. After that, the friends of the deceased had been invited to step up and add a few words if they wished.

And it began, slowly at first, with little pauses in between, as if everyone was waiting to see if someone else would go first, but it built, gradually, as though each shared experience shook loose a half a dozen others, and the reminiscences began to pour out.

These weren't the funny stories of the night before, but something of a different quality. And though he still recognized a lot of what was said, it was obvious that much more came from times and places that the judge knew nothing about.

It went on for a long time, then slowed almost imperceptibly, and he felt a few eyes turning to him. He knew they were expecting him to go up there, as if he might simply be able to say a few kind words.

He had felt it, over the past few days, the old pattern superimposing itself on him. _Lock the door. Bar it. Keep it all inside. That's the only solution._

But he'd tried that before and he knew the cost.

00000

The lot was full at St. Medard's, and the hearse was standing out front. Mark suppressed a cold shiver and parked the Coyote on the street. He climbed out, hurried down the half-block, and took the steps up to the vestibule at a stiff lope. There were sounds of voices from within, but the inner doors were all closed. He eased one open a crack and saw that things were already underway.

He was standing there, hesitating, when a neatly-dressed man in a dark suit approached, from the other end of the vestibule. _Undertaker. _Mark attempted a smile, well aware that he hadn't had time to do anything about how he looked.

"Are you a friend of the deceased?" the man asked, in a melodiously solemn voice.

Mark stifled an altogether inappropriate laugh and then settled for a quick nod. _Same problem as calling. The only way you're going to get this guy to believe you is to walk into that church and throw the whole thing up for grabs._

He was aware that there'd been a break in the sounds from within, no one was speaking right now, but through the crack he could see Hardcastle, making his way slowly toward the front of the church. There was something in his gait that suggested a heavy burden. _He looks old_.

Mark paled; there was no question that his timing could not have been more exquisitely bad. If he stepped inside now, there was no way that anyone, including Hardcastle himself, could believe that he had not somehow _engineered_ his arrival for maximum dramatic effect.

He took two cautious steps back from the door. The funeral director was eyeing him suspiciously.

"How much longer, do you think?" he asked politely, backing out a little further.

The other man cocked his head, as if he were listening; he finally answered, "Twenty minutes, maybe a little longer."

Mark thanked him and fled back out into the sunshine.

00000

He'd taken the lectern as if it were a witness box and he considered the crowd for a moment as though they were a jury, though he knew it would be more like preaching to the choir. And then he set to it without preamble.

"Thank you all for coming here today, and thank you for the kind words you've had to say about Mark. None of them surprise me, because I could pretty much match every one of them." He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "But there's something else that none of you have wanted to talk about today, but that most of you are probably wondering about, and that's the accusation that has been made, that he murdered a man just before he himself was killed.

"Now, I know Father Atia doesn't believe it, because he is here, giving Mark a burial. And I know most of you are hoping it's not true, because you knew McCormick, and you don't think he'd do something like that.

"But it's there anyway, in the back of your minds, that maybe he _did_ do it.

"But I'm gonna tell you this, because I believe it without a question of a doubt, McCormick did _not _kill a man in cold blood. Now, I'm not going to stop trying to prove it, but I know it's hard to prove a negative, especially when all the involved parties are dead, and sometimes it's got to just come down to a matter of faith. If that's so, I hope you can just believe me, the way I'm telling you I believe in him."

He stood there for a moment, facing the silent crowd, studying them, but not really concerning himself with their reactions. It was enough that he knew it to be true. And then he stepped down, without another word, and returned to his seat.

00000

Mark stood on the sidewalk for a moment, eyeing the hearse with some trepidation and wondering just how bad a condition the other guy had to be in, to have been able to pass muster as someone else by the M.E. _Bad enough that Hardcase couldn't I.D. him up close?_ He shuddered again. The hearse's driver was giving him the same suspicious eye that he'd gotten in the vestibule. He nodded once and walked away toward the Coyote.

Twenty minutes, maybe longer. He was tired, and wished he hadn't abandoned that third glass of water. He still felt two quarts low. He climbed in stiffly and eased himself down.

_Just don't fall asleep._

00000

Barbara had taken his hand when he'd sat back down. Her eyes had been gleaming. Harper had given him a warm smile as well. The rest of the Mass had gone on, and the words had somehow given him more comfort than before.

Then it was over, and the casket was being moved out again. He walked behind it, but thought of another Mark entirely.

A final blessing and the pallbearers went back to work, carrying it down the stairs. He followed them down and stood there, watching, not sure if it was weariness that blurred his vision. And then something else caught his eye. The damn thing was so distinctive that it was hard to miss.

He knew he was staring, and he heard Frank ask Barbara if she'd had it brought over. But before she could answer he was already moving toward it. _Somebody's idea of a joke?_ He heard Frank break into a half jog to catch up with him, but he was still a few steps in the lead when he'd gotten close enough to see into the driver's side.

He froze; he blinked twice, and the half of him that wanted desperately to believe is own eyes scored a KO against the half that figured he really was losing it this time.

"_McCormick_," he bellowed, "where the hell'uv you _been_?"

The guy in the driver's seat jerked a little as his eyes opened. He'd obviously dozed off. He stared up, a little muzzily, then grinned and said, "Sorry I'm late."

Hardcastle looked over his shoulder; Frank had pulled up short behind him. The mourners were just starting to appear on the porch of the church, and there was apparent confusion.

He looked back down again, taking a better look at the utterly unexpected. The second inspection was a little more critical. The kid looked like hell. And, almost as suddenly, Hardcastle didn't feel much better.

He heard Mark call out Frank's name a little urgently and saw him start to scramble up out of his seat clumsily. "Sit him down," Mark added, looking like he needed to follow his own advice, but the judge didn't have a chance to comment on this before Frank had him turned around and plopped down on the edge of the Coyote. The spots started to clear.

"Where _were_ you?" he asked again with quieter insistence, looking up at the younger man, who was now on his feet frowning at him.

"A brown building, maybe a roadhouse, windows boarded up, out in the middle of nowhere," McCormick sighed, in a tone that suggested repetition.

Hardcastle looked back toward the hearse, the casket half in and half out. "Then who's . . .?"

"A guy Kolata hired to look like me and cause some trouble."

Hardcastle pondered this for a moment and finally said, "Well, he sure succeeded."

Mark nodded. "I don't know his name . . . I got his car, though. Maybe the registration . . ." he brightened

Father Atia had arrived, smiling broadly in delighted surprise, then, almost as quickly, glancing back over his shoulder. "There _is _a body in there? This isn't some sort of—"

"Yeah, there's a body," Frank said grimly. "And it's going back to the M.E."

Now nearly everyone was out on the steps, or scattered on the sidewalk, a few were walking over, the rest were talking and pointing.

"Ah, Father," Frank said quietly, "wanna go make some sort of announcement? I don't think these guys are quite up to a receiving line right now." And as the priest nodded and walked away, Harper added, "And don't forget to tell 'em we proved a negative." Then he turned to Mark and asked, practically, "Do you need a hospital?"

McCormick thought about this briefly and said, "No, I need lunch. And maybe some iodine." He looked down at his hands.

"You got clocked in the head, kiddo," Hardcastle observed. "Got some blood up there."

"That was, um, three days ago. If that was gonna kill me I'd be dead already." He paused at the judge's grimace, and then added a quick, "Sorry." He started to reach out toward the other man, then hesitated, and flipped his hand palm up. "Just a little banged up, that's all. And I _do_ want lunch."

Hardcastle eased himself off the hood of the Coyote and looked the other man over one more time. "You up to driving? I wanna go home."

McCormick shrugged. "I got here, didn't I?"

"Late," Hardcastle muttered, "for your own funeral."

"I came as fast as I could," Mark replied, with a surprising note of sincerity. "Lunch?" He added hopefully.

"Home first. You need to get cleaned up." He looked over at Barbara, who was stifling a laugh. "You get the rest of those folks over to the restaurant. We'll meet you there once he's presentable." He shook his head at the kid. "Three days," he muttered to himself in disbelieving astonishment.

He ambled around to the passenger side, then shot a sudden, nervous look over at the younger man. "Oh, no . . ."

"What?" McCormick looked at him with concern.

"The medal."

"You found it?" His voice shot up an octave.

"But it's—"

Mark looked over his shoulder with sudden understanding. Then he turned and took two steps in that direction, as if he was going to demand the return of his property then and there.

"Wait," the judge leaned over and snagged him. Frank had moved in, ready to back Hardcastle up.

"But—"

"_No_," they replied in unison.

"Not here," the judge continued. "The M.E. will get it back for you." He hauled him toward the car by his arm.

Mark looked from one to the other, then nodded once and muttered, "Okay," as he climbed into the driver's seat.

Hardcastle gave Harper a quick jerk of the chin that meant he wasn't trusting this to the M.E. but that Frank wasn't going to discuss it with the undertaker until _after_ they'd pulled away.

00000

He'd explained mostly everything by the time they got back to the house. Several of the more graphic details involving socks he'd left out, and he got the impression that Hardcastle's eerily calm recital of his end of the operation had been similarly edited for content.

He was suddenly not so hungry after he reconsidered all the implications of the funeral.

"You thought it was me," he finally said, point-blank, as he followed the older man into the main house. All he got was a nod in return. Hardcastle had turned right, and gone down the steps into the den. He followed him in there as well. "But," he frowned at Hardcastle's back. The man was standing over by the desk, looking down at the half-eaten Pop Tart. "But you_ saw _him shoot Haller."

"We saw what Kolata wanted us to see, yeah."

"And you thought I could do that?" Mark asked, "Shoot a guy in cold blood? I mean, you didn't think for a minute it wasn't me? You _gave_ him my _medal_." His tone had an edge of betrayal in it.

"He had your medal _on_ him when he ran to the car," Hardcastle pointed out cautiously. "It was a very good frame."

"And you believed it?"

"No." There'd been no thoughtful pause, no moment of hesitation. He'd said it very flatly; he didn't turn around.

"But . . ." Mark frowned down at the floor; he tried to reassemble the facts in some way that made more sense. "You thought it _was_ me . . . and you saw him shoot Haller." He paused, and then looked up again. "Hey, what was Frank saying, back by the church, about 'proving a negative'?"

"Oh," Hardcastle shook his head, and finally turned slowly, "that's what I told them we'd have to do. Prove a negative. That you _hadn't_ shot Haller, at least not in cold blood. It's not what you're supposed to have to do, in a court of law, but—"

"Told them?" Mark interrupted the discussion. "What them?"

Hardcastle made a face. "'Them' the people in the church 'them'. That's who." Hardcastle sighed in exasperation. "See, it's supposed to be up to the system to prove people guilty, not people to prove themselves innocent—"

"That's what you stood up and said in there?" Mark interrupted again, looking at him in outright astonishment. "That you were going to prove I was innocent?"

"Well, yeah," Hardcastle shrugged. "You had a whole bunch of other people there to say nice things about you."

Mark smiled. "Yeah," he finally said, "but probably only one who really thought I wasn't guilty of Haller's murder." He shook his head in wonderment. "Thanks, Hardcase."

He started to reached over, to snag the Pop Tart, but something in Hardcastle's expression made him pause.

_It'd been three days._

"I'm okay," his smile softened again. He put his hand, almost hesitantly, on the older man's arm. "Really."

An intake of breath, and a sharp nod from the judge, and then he said, after a moment's pause and very gruffly, "But you'd better go hit the showers."

Mark let go, shook his head one more time again, and flashed a quick grin as he turned and walked out into the hallway.


	2. Chapter 2

Believe—Part II/Epilogue

He'd suspected for a moment in the shower that he really had died and gone to heaven, but another look at himself in the mirror, as he shaved, was enough to convince him otherwise. He had a sudden new understanding of why he'd gotten those deeply suspicious looks from the funeral director. _Never mind, no permanent damage._

He hadn't been surprised to see Frank's car in the drive when he re-emerged from the gatehouse. The black and white parked further down the drive was less anticipated, and led him to a brief, almost reflexive, review of his conscience. There couldn't possibly be anything left that they wanted to arrest him for, but old instincts died hard.

No, it was obvious that the beat car was there to run interference for them, to keep the press off the property. McCormick smiled as he turned toward the main house. The smile stayed in place all the way to the door, but faded a little as he let himself in. There were voices coming from the den—low, the words not quite audible. Frank's sounded concerned, and the judge's responses were brief, and astonishingly quiet.

Mark closed the door behind him firmly, and was rewarded with a sudden, almost guilty silence. He frowned, erased that, then stepped into the doorway of the den and said, "Ready to go?"

Hardcastle was sitting behind the desk. The top had been cleared off, every newspaper, every bit of the file, all out of sight. The man himself appeared a little tense; he'd cast a quick glance in Frank's direction and then back at McCormick.

"You don't have to go if you're not up to it."

Mark couldn't help it; his frown was back, along with an edginess he hadn't felt earlier. "I said I was okay. I'll go. Besides, we're out of Pop Tarts." He tried a quick self-deprecating smile and added, "And I kinda wanna get it over with. The whole thing is embarrassing as hell—"

"Embarrassing?" Hardcastle interrupted him with a tone of utter surprise. "That's what you're worried about?" Even Frank looked baffled.

Mark shrugged. "Yeah, all those people showing up and then—"

"_Mark_," this time it was Harper, and the interruption was one of complete exasperation, "they're your _friends_ . . . they thought you were _dead_." He paused and flicked a quick glance back at the judge, as though he thought he might have stepped into dangerous territory.

Mark kept his face neutral. _This has something to do with what they were talking about._

"Anyway," Frank sighed, "you don't have anything to be embarrassed about. It was our screw-up."

Hardcastle said nothing, just looked a little grimmer.

Mark stepped over to a chair and dropped into it wearily. "No, it wasn't you guys' fault. Sheesh. What are the odds? A hit man that looks just like me; who was _supposed_ to pass for me, and he gets quick-fried to the point where nobody—"

He heard a sharp intake of breath from Frank and looked up at him, then just as quickly at the judge, in time to catch a look of pale fear, quickly suppressed.

"Sorry," he said, and then he took a deep breath and shook his head. "But it wasn't _me_."

It was only the briefest of moments before Hardcastle had it all under control. He pushed back from the desk and started to stand.

"He's right," he said flatly. "It wasn't him. He's okay . . . we're okay." He was on his feet. He jerked his chin sharply toward the door. "Let's go have lunch."

Mark resisted a sudden impulse to say 'Now you're cookin'. Frank's look of disapproval was entirely discouraging of humor. The judge was moving past them, out the door. Harper hung back a little, and reached for Mark's sleeve before he could follow Hardcastle.

"Here," he said, holding something in his other, outstretched palm.

Mark looked down quickly, then reached for the medal. The chain was different, a little heavier, with a clasp. He looked up at Frank with a quick and grateful smile. "That was fast."

Frank shrugged. "I washed it off."

Mark's smile turned into a grimace of sympathy. "Pretty bad, huh?"

"Well," Harper looked reflective for a moment, "still sort of human. That always makes it worse." He paused again and then said, "I don't think he's slept since Friday. Maybe you could convince him to just stand down—"

"You guys comin' or what?" came the gruff shout from beyond the front door. Mark grimaced again and shook his head at the lieutenant.

"Not likely," he said with chagrin. "You know him."

"Not like he was the past few days," Frank answered sharply, but without raising his voice. "I _didn't_ know him. He wasn't really _here._" Harper shook his head and then frowned. "And I don't think he's back yet."

00000

The press was out in front of Salvadore's, too, but Mark never saw them. The proprietor was a friend of Hardcastle's and his head waiter knew a few things about discouraging trespassers.

Frank parked in the back and they went in through the kitchen. Things sounded raucously underway inside, nothing funereal about it. Sal was providing the champagne. Still, there was no way to sneak into such a gathering, and the moment of their entrance was marked by a general halt in the conversation, followed by some cheers, shouts, then a rapid rise in the noise levels that included whistles and claps.

Nobody mobbed him, though, for which he was grateful, but there were greetings, touches, slaps on the back. The sudden transition from solitary confinement to this, was almost dizzying. Someone was getting him a seat, someone else was fetching him a glass of wine, which he was pretty certain was a bad idea at this point.

He had a notion that his smile was getting a little rigid. He saw Frank a ways off, back by the door to the kitchen. Hardcastle was not in sight. Oddly, it was Teddy Hollins who came to his rescue. Six months in a cell with a guy can give you a lot of insight, Mark supposed. He thought the man's usually goofy grin had an edge of concern to it and within a few minutes he had managed to produce some sort of subtle crowd control. Barbara showed up with a plate of food and took the seat next to him.

"Thanks," he smiled. It looked good, maybe not as good as that first Pop Tart, but he was still eight meals behind. He took a few bites and craned his head again. He dropped his voice, "Where's the judge?"

"Sal took him in the back, his office."

"He's okay?" Mark looked over that way.

Barbara nodded. "Just tired, he said. Hasn't slept much. You don't look so good yourself," she added.

"I'm okay," he muttered. "Banged up, that's all, Really." He shoveled another mouthful in.

"Well, he said to stay as long as you like." Barbara looked at him askance, and then added, "Which I think should be about five minutes after you finish that plateful of food. Everyone will understand."

Mark looked around him for a moment, then he leaned in a little bit toward her and said, "Yeah, I got some sleep, but . . ." He was frowning again, looking over his shoulder. "You sure he's okay?"

Barbara stared at him for a moment in what looked like disbelief. "You guys are _so_ strange." She gave her head a slow shake. "I don't get it. He spends three days looking like he's seen hell itself. Not sleeping. Moving around on autopilot. He attends your _funeral_, dammit." She brushed the side of her hand across her eyes. "He believed it. We all did . . . but he made the most beautiful speech." She smiled slightly. "Really, you have no idea.

"And then we walk out of that church and there's dad's car . . . and there _you _are." She was looking up at him steadily now, still with an echo of wondering doubt about the whole thing. "And . . . and then he's shouting at you, and you said . . . what the hell did you say?"

"Um," Mark blinked a moment, in confusion. "I think I said I was sorry I was late."

"There," she put her fingers to her temples in quiet frustration. "See? That's what I mean. He thought you were dead. Three days he thought that. You _knew_ he thought that, and yet you both act like . . . like everything is business as usual. Most people would be crying, shouting for joy. Why the hell didn't you at least _hug_ the man?"

Mark frowned. He put the fork down. He looked around for a moment again then dropped his voice a notch lower. "Barbara," he said with weary intensity, "did I ever tell you about the trip we took back to Arkansas, to Hardcastle's hometown?"

"Yeah," she frowned, "It sounded crazy; the mayor tried to kill him."

Mark nodded. "It was—crazy, I mean. And I thought he _was_ dead, for a little while. Overnight." He felt himself blush slightly. "I went a little crazy, too. Then he showed up the next morning, while I was telling somebody what a great donkey he was." Mark smiled. "I dunno, maybe I went a _lot _crazy, and . . . anyway, he shows up and takes me _completely_ off-guard and . . ."

"You hugged him?" Barbara finished, with a look of mild puzzlement. "And so . . . ?"

"And _so_," Mark gave her a look of long-practiced exasperation, "he was uncomfortable as hell. Totally pissed. You could tell. It was like hugging a porcupine . . . a big, irritated porcupine." He frowned in a moment of additional thought. "And that was out in the middle of nowhere, not in front of damn near everybody we know, all staring at him. Man," he exhaled sharply, "I'd like to think I have more sense than to do it _then_."

"Sense, huh?" Barbara looked at him dubiously. "That's what you two call it?"

Mark shrugged. "I didn't say it _made_ sense. You just gotta understand him. He jokes around; he acts gruff. Sometimes it means what it means, and sometimes it means something more." He picked the fork up and pushed the food around for a moment before he looked over his shoulder again. "You _sure_ he's okay?"

"Honestly," Barbara kept her voice low and tight, "I don't think either one of you is."

Mark stared for a moment at the plate and then put the fork down again. "I think I'm done." He looked up at Barbara. "I think I'm gonna go see how he's doing."

She smiled gently. "I've got my car. I'll stick around here for a while; tell 'em all you've decided to call it a day. They'll understand."

He gave her a grateful nod and took a quick sip of the wine before he stood up and slipped out the door to the kitchen. Frank was standing there, talking to Sal. Before Mark even had a chance to open his mouth, Harper jerked his thumb in the direction of a closed door, off to the side. McCormick nodded again, a little nervously this time.

He gave a perfunctory knock, but didn't wait for a greeting before he reached for the knob. There was a desk inside, piled with papers; behind that were file cabinets, shelves, and, alongside it, over against one wall, a battered sofa—vinyl and chrome.

The judge occupied one end of it, slumped back a little, but wide awake. He cast a look up at his visitor and gave him one pensive nod. "Done already?" He looked down at his watch. "You shouldn't eat so fast."

Mark just stood there for a moment, gauging it all, feeling the old reflexes slip into place, resisting them for a moment.

"You don't look so good," he said carefully. That was God's honest truth; the man looked almost as gray as he'd appeared in that moment by the car.

Hardcastle raised one eyebrow but didn't protest outright. Instead he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward a little. "You aren't looking so hot, yourself, kiddo."

Mark shut the door behind him and took two more steps over to the sofa, dropping down onto the other end. "Well," he said, speaking without turning to the side, "I don't feel so hot, either."

_That's one way in._

"I mean, it's not _serious_, or anything," he hastily amended. "I'm just tired. It's not like I'm gonna die or something," He sensed the judge tensing up. He turned his head slowly. Hardcastle was staring straight at him.

"What?" Mark asked in aggravated befuddlement. "What the hell is it? We settled that, didn't we? The guy in the box wasn't me. I didn't get shot and I didn't get incinerated." He heard his voice rising a little in impatience.

_How the hell could Barbara talk about hugging this guy? _

Hardcastle stared for a second longer, then dropped his gaze. "No," he said the first word so quietly that McCormick almost didn't catch it, then he continued on in a voice that was still low, but very intense, "but you might've died anyway. Might've died right where you were. Sounds like you almost did. If it hadn't rained, if they hadn't left that broken down cot in there, if you hadn't kept trying." He swallowed once, then he added, "Nobody was _looking_ for you . . . _I_ wasn't looking for you."

Mark looked taken aback. "Well," he said after a moment, "of course not. I sorta figured that out after a while . . . but you thought I was dead." He saw Hardcastle nod once, still studying the floor. "Like I thought you were dead in that reservoir in Arkansas. I stopped looking, too. No different."

He still wasn't getting any response. He sighed heavily. "Okay, nobody's perfect, and I don't expect you to get my hash out of the fire _every_ time." He winced at the mental imagery that that invoked. Then he sighed again. "And I kinda remember the whole thing being my idea in the first place." He frowned briefly. "Right?'

"It was a group effort," Hardcastle replied, looking up slowly.

"Well," Mark smiled and shook his head, "you didn't hear me say 'no', did you? Must've sounded like a good plan at the time."

"One of our best," Hardcastle said dryly.

"Okay," McCormick forced a grin, "So just don't go getting all weird about it." He lumbered to his feet again, a little stiffly, then turned and looked down at the older man. "Come on," he offered him a hand up, "I wanna go home."

Hardcastle accepted that, but, surprisingly, didn't shake free as soon as he was standing.

Mark stood there, considering the other man. "Too bad you're such a damn porcupine," he finally said, a little ruefully.

"Huh?"

"Never mind," Mark smiled again, fondly. "Let's go home."


End file.
